


room service

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Hotels, brienne is a maid at a hotel and jaime is a guest/fantasy author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18760714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: brienne works as a maid at a luxury hotel, jaime is a fantasy author staying as a guestoriginally written for the prompt: brienne works as a maid in a hotel and accidentally walks in on jaime in the bath because he forgot to lock the door.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is something i've been working on, on tumblr, for years, that i've decided to fix up a bit and post here, and continue. so there are five chapters currently on tumblr that i'm editing and will post as they're done, probably once a day, until i get to new parts. if you don't want to wait you can [read what's been written so far here](https://oneangryshot.tumblr.com/tagged/room%20service), though some parts will change slightly (not anything major dw). 
> 
> pls note my desperation in the tags of the fourth chapter, where i really did not want to call this room service. guess there's not a single other thing it could be called!

"Housekeeping!" Brienne calls, rapping her knuckles against the hotel room door. There is a long silence, so she repeats herself and knocks again, and when there’s still no answer, she swipes her key-card through the reader, and enters the room.

It’s the best suite in the hotel, the penthouse, and Brienne always feels a little bit uncomfortable in it. Celebrities stay here, sports stars, businessmen with shiny briefcases who tip badly or not at all. She thinks it’s a writer this time, a popular fantasy author who writes about knights and swords and glory. She can’t remember his name, but she remembers his book covers: busty women laced into tight dresses and impossibly handsome men in armour. Brienne doesn’t read them.

The suite is pale wood and bright glass. An open lounge, full of furniture that isn't really made to be used, only to look good, and half-shuttered blinds that throw stripes of light across the room, and a whole wall of folded glass that can be wound up with a button, opening out onto a balcony with a swimming pool that seems to tip over the edge of the building, down to the streets below. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms and a kitchen that almost always remains unused. White marble and blue flame. A small gym, a sauna, an office. Brienne brings new flowers, fresh, when she's on morning shifts. She swaps them with the day old bouquets, strewn throughout the suite, not even wilting yet. She doubts the people that use these rooms even notice when thin curled flaxes and spiky birds of paradise are replaced with death lilies and baby's breath. She thinks baby's breath might not be fashionable anymore. She thinks she probably won't tell her boss that.

She moves quickly around the lounge and bedrooms, dusting and wiping and smoothing things down. The proper cleaning happens when the room is empty; the windows get washed and the carpets steam-cleaned and any wrinkle is unwrinkled. She changes sheets, restocks the mini-bar (which is empty of all the tiny bottles of spirits, she notes), wipes the television screens free of smudges. Then she heads into the master bathroom.

It takes her about half a second to realise it's occupied. The air is thick with steam and there is a man with golden hair in the bath, his knees above water, and she is suddenly incredibly grateful for the hotel's complimentary bubble bath. She turns around, blushing furiously.

“I’m so sorry sir,” she blurts, in a rush.

“Wait,” he calls, sounding amused. He says the word slowly, like he’s rolling it around on his tongue before speaking it. Like it tastes of caramel. Brienne freezes.

“I’ll come back later to do... to clean the bathroom,” she says, not turning around, a statue in the doorway.  
  
“Turn around,” he says.

“Why?” she squeaks, her voice raising by a few octaves. “ _No_ .”  
  
“I want to see if your face is as red as the back of your neck,” the man purrs.  
  
“Definitely not,” she hisses, trying very hard to steer her voice back to its normal range. _This man could get you fired_ , she thinks. _This is ridiculous_ , she thinks.

“Why aren’t you wearing one of those sexy maid outfits?” he asks then, and that really is too much to ignore.  
  
Brienne spins back to face him, keeping her eyes very firmly on his face. He looks like one of the knights on his book covers, impossibly handsome and impossibly aware of it. Unconsciously, her hands curl into fists.

“Do you know what sexual harassment is, sir?” she asks, tilting her chin and squaring her shoulders.  
  
“I doubt you’ve ever been sexually harassed,” he says, grinning slyly.  
  
“Because it only happens to the pretty ones?” She actually laughs at that, though it’s a bitter sound. She's going to be so, _so_ fired. This is not the first time she’s talked back to a guest. “You’re an asshole.”

“ _I_ am getting you paid.” He cocks his head to one side, his hair falling to hit the surface of the water. The bubbles are fading, she notes, and all the empty bottles from the mini-bar are lining the rim of the bath, ordered by the colour of the glass. She focuses on his eyes, bottle green, with fierce determination.

“That’s got nothing to do with anything,” she tells him. “I’d rather... I’d rather-.”  
  
“You’d rather have no job at all than deal with me,” he finishes for her, actually sounding fascinated now, looking at her like she’s something new in the world, never seen before by anyone. A different species. She rolls her eyes.

“I’m going to go now,” she says. “If you report me, I’ll report you, and I’ll probably still get fired, but... you can’t-.”

She gives up in frustration. Something about him makes it impossible for her to finish her sentences. It's the nudity, most likely. The bubbles. The bullshit. She glares at him once more and leaves the room, slamming the door behind her. She wonders if Catelyn Stark will take her on as a housemaid. Her fingers itch to knock the flowers over or swap them back for the old ones or rumple up his bed sheets, but she does none of it. She wheels the cleaning trolley out into the hallway, and closes his door, and she doesn’t go back to clean the rest of the suite.

When she next sees him, it’s just getting dark and she has a coat on over her cleaning uniform and she’s waiting for the bus at the stop down the road. Mr Baelish hadn't said anything to her, hadn’t told her she was fired, and she hadn’t said anything to him about a rude guest. She is thinking of what she has in her cupboards at home, to make for dinner, and how she really should start planning her meals properly, and then there he is, squinting down at her, in a puddle of light from a street lamp. He has his hands in his pockets and he is the last person in the world she wants to see.

“Are you following me?” she demands.  
  
“I’m going to dinner,” he says, not answering her question.

“Well keep going then.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he actually looks sincere, his expression pained and earnest. Brienne folds her hands in her lap, looks at his shadow, stretching out onto the road.

“I don’t care,” she says, after a beat of silence.

“I probably deserve that,” he says, sighing. “I was drunk, I... I got a bad phone call this morning and that’s not your fault, obviously, but... I really am sorry.”  
  
“Good,” mutters Brienne, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.  
  
“Are you cleaning my room all week?”

“I... no.” She doesn’t tell him that she deliberately swapped with Ygritte, one of the other maids.  
  
“Well... maybe I’ll see you around.”  
  
“You won’t,” Brienne says, stiffly.  
  
He nods and shrugs and leaves her sitting there, walking off down the footpath without looking back. She’s glad for it. He was an asshole. A handsome, _rich_ asshole, which is even worse. They don’t usually apologise though. She wonders if he meant it. She wonders what the phone call was. She kicks at the damp concrete and shoves her hands a little deeper in her pockets.  
  
The next day, she picks up one of his books from the book store near her apartment. His name is Jaime Lannister. It’s an obnoxious name, she decides, and she turns the first page.


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne avoids Jaime Lannister’s entire floor, like he might emerge from under the carpet, or sidle out from behind picture frames. She reads his book during her breaks and she scowls at every page, because it makes her feel less like she’s enjoying it. There’s a knight with golden armour and there’s a woman with golden hair, but Brienne likes the girl in dented armour with the broken nose most of all. Or she would, if she liked the book at all, but she doesn’t.   
  
A week later, when she and Ygritte swap again and she goes back to higher levels, penthouses and presidential suites, she thinks that his sheets will be smooth and his windows clean, because he will be gone. His book burns holes in her bag, in her locker, and the girl with the armour is killed off, but she keeps reading because he  _ must _ be gone. He’s a short-term guest, a fly-by-night, though Ygritte says he tips quite well. 

She comes across him outside a room on one of the lower levels. It’s not his room. He is jamming a key-card into the lock and kicking at the door, while it blinks red at him and croaks out a rejection. He is naked, except for black boxer-briefs. He is  _ golden _ . A shriek escapes Brienne’s lips, before she can turn away and run back down the hall, pulling her cleaning trolley with her. Before she can abandon her trolley to save her own life. He turns around and she’s caught in his white-toothed smile, like a deer in headlights.

“Brilliant!” he cries, striding toward her. His thighs are... and his hands are... and his stomach is... Brienne starts to shake her head.   
  
“Don’t come a single step closer,” she warns. He stops dead in his tracks. His smile doesn’t waver.   
  
“I just need your card, to get me in my room.”    
  
“Your card is fine,” she snaps. “That’s not your room.”   
  
Jaime Lannister frowns. Jaime Lannister sways in place. Brienne thinks that if she took just one step closer, she would be able to smell the haze of alcohol on his breath, like a cloud of steam surrounding him, so she takes a step backwards instead, and pulls the trolley with her.

“Is that true?” he asks, squinting at his card.   
  
“This is the fifth floor, you're on the eleventh.”

“How many floors are there?” 

“Eleven.”

He grins again, and tucks the card into the waistband of his underwear. Brienne frowns at the carpet, unable to move now that he’s spoken to her, unable to relax her hands from their death grip on the trolley. She desperately wants to ask him why he’s drunk and naked in the hallway of a hotel, on the wrong floor, with nothing but his key-card. She desperately wants to ask him why he had left his bathroom unlocked, when he had his bath, a whole week ago now. Especially when housekeeping always shows up at the same time. She desperately wants to ask him why he hadn’t reported her to management. Instead, she stays silent, and stares at her hands and at the carpet.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get there by myself,” he says, and she looks up.   
  
“I’m not going to help you,” she tells him, primly. “Sir.”    
  
“I think you should,” he says, and he takes another step forward. “I’ll give you a shiny new penny.” 

“Fuck you,” she snaps, before she can stop herself.   
  
His smile falls, and he runs a hand through his hair, and he frowns and sways and looks suddenly, terribly, frightened. He composes himself quickly, though, and Brienne swallows the wave of sympathy she’d felt itching its way up her throat. She will not feel sorry for someone so rich and awful. She chews at the inside of her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds like he means it, just like he had the first time. “I think I have that thing, where you can’t stop saying things that you shouldn’t.”   
  
“I don’t care,” says Brienne. “Are we done?”   
  
“Please can you help me to my room?” he asks her, once again. “I don’t think I’ll be able to work the card."

He is looking at her, earnest and pleading, hardly able to stand, in underwear and bare feet. He is not golden, not truly (and  _ she _ doesn’t have a broken nose or dented armour), he seems more desperate, more tired. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his hair is falling around his face in tangles. He looks like someone who has forgotten who he is. 

"Please," he says, once more, and his voice breaks on the word.

Brienne pushes her trolley to one side, lining it up carefully against the wall. 

“Follow me,” she says, and she hates herself for it, just a little bit, but she’s also not someone who abandons unhappy people, and he is definitely someone who might change his mind about reporting her, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. It’s six floors and a key-card and she can wash her hands of Jaime Lannister again. 

He follows her and in the elevator he leans against the wall, looking like he might fall without it. The key-card has not fallen, it is pressed firmly against his hip, trapped between fabric and skin. Brienne watches the buttons lighting up as they travel higher.

When they get to his room, he stares at the door, like he’s never seen it before in his life. It's a private floor, only accessible by him, and she can't understand how he confused himself so badly. He has not spoken since she agreed to help him. He has not spoken since he said  _ please.  _ He drops his card, trying to tug it from his waistband, and Brienne picks it up and swipes it through the reader without looking at him. The lock glows green and chirps happily and she pushes the door open too, because he is staring at her and seems to have forgotten how to move. 

She doesn’t go inside and after a moment he remembers he has limbs and stumbles forward. He turns back and takes the card from her. Her fingers brush hers and she thinks of the girl with the broken nose and the knight in golden armour and she snatches her hand back like his skin is burning hot. He smiles at her, wide and happy and earnest as a child. A drunk smile. She frowns.

“Is that all?”

“A goodnight kiss from my saviour?” he asks, leaning heavily against the door frame.

“Call room service for something for your hangover,” she says, and she heads back to the elevators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as promised, a chapter every day. tbh i might post another later today, depending on how easy it is to get away with not doing my actual real life job. 
> 
> always always thank you for reading! lmk what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (biscuits like cookies not like scones dw about it)

When Brienne feels undone, cut loose or out of sorts, she bakes. She is not sure what she’s feeling, when she gets home after her shift that night, but she knows that peanut butter biscuits will solve it. Peanut butter biscuits will clear her head of images of Jaime Lannister, drunk and naked. Jaime Lannister, in a bubble bath. Jaime Lannister, with an expression like a man drowning. He is just a guest at the hotel, she tells herself, and when he is no longer a guest at the hotel, he’s just a stranger who she will never see again. She pulls out butter from her fridge and sugar from a cupboard and beats them together in a bowl in her sink until her arm aches. 

The book that has weighed down her bag for more than a week is sitting on the coffee table in her living room, with dog-eared pages and a broken spine. It’s not that she’s been intentionally mistreating it, but it is large and she has several rings of keys drifting around in the bottom of her bag, and gym shoes and an old pair of goggles and several hotel-branded pens. It's _lived in_ , she thinks. He killed off the girl in the armour. The girl with the broken nose and the bruises under her ribs and the calluses on her hands. When Brienne cracks an egg into the mix, she slams it too hard against the side of the bowl, and has to fish out the tiny pieces of shell that drip down the side into the batter.

She thinks about the last time she baked peanut butter biscuits, months ago now. Her father had called her, gently concerned, and he’d asked her if she was sleeping, he’d spoken with Renly, and  _ Renly _ was worried. Brienne had ended the conversation quickly, and after sitting on her bed for a long time, pinching at the webs between her fingers, she’d hauled out her mother’s recipe book, and turned her oven on.

Pairing both Renly and Jaime Lannister with peanut butter biscuits makes her feel uneasy. She pauses at the mixing bowl and stares at the batter in the sink and thinks, absurdly, that if she had chocolate chips she would be making a different sort of biscuit and, somehow, that would make it all better. Instead, she shuts her eyes, and lets out all her breath until she feels more grounded, and she adds the peanut butter. There have been cakes, and muffins, and pies since then. Peanut butter biscuits are a drop in the ocean.

“Biscuits and bastards,” she mutters, pulling the sieve out of a cupboard and messily gathering flour in a cup. 

She would feel this shattered and burned out if she’d seen anyone unexpectedly, practically naked, she reasons, and she knows that’s true at least. The bones in her hands would feel loose under her skin for anyone. The bridges of her cheekbones would feel hot and raw and delicate for  _ anyone _ . It is a nervous reaction from a girl who hasn’t seen that much bare flesh in a long time. A girl who doesn't particularly want to see bare flesh, especially not the bare flesh of someone who looked like... and acted like...

“It’s just biscuits and bastards,” she breathes, and she starts to ball the dough between her palms.

The biscuits bake fast, growing quickly into criss-crossed circles of golden brown. It’s a good recipe, she thinks, tossing a hot one from hand to hand, taking a bite and burning her tongue immediately. It was all of her mother she had left, apart from her freckles. A folder of handwritten recipes stained in batter and burnt in some places and sticky in others. Brienne baked when she was uncomfortable, like the warmth of the oven and the feel of dough under her hands was the same sort of thing as a mother comforting her daughter. She finishes the first biscuit and leaves the rest to cool, and her hands are already steadier, her skin sitting still against muscle and bone. 

She opens the book because baking and reading go hand in hand. The girl in armour is still dead. The golden knight and the woman with golden hair might be in love. Something feels strange about it, slick and poisonous and destructive, but Brienne can’t be sure she’s not just bitter that her favourite character is gone. She should have stopped reading a hundred pages back. She should have thrown the book out. She should have left it outside Jaime Lannister’s door, unfinished.

“I dreamed of you,” says the golden knight, standing over the dead girl’s grave, and Brienne bites her lip and shuts the book and eats another biscuit. 

She takes the rest to work the next day and leaves them in the break room. She leaves the book at home, afraid that she’ll turn a page to find the golden knight and the golden woman are married. Sansa, the maître d’ for the hotel’s best restaurant, looks at the baking tin with one perfectly groomed eyebrow raised.

“Boy trouble?” she asks, looking disgusted at the thought.

“Of course not,” Brienne replies, as easily as she can manage. 

“Last time you made those was when-.”

“I know, Sansa.” 

“Just a coincidence then?”

“Just a coincidence.”

“Good.”

Sansa takes a biscuit and grins brilliantly and disappears in a whirl of storm grey silk and autumn hair. Sansa thinks everything is boy trouble. Sansa thought the time the chlorine in the swimming pool at the gym turned Brienne’s hair green was boy trouble. It was just chemicals. 

Brienne is working on the mid levels again, but it doesn’t put her at ease. Jaime Lannister seems able to show up exactly where he isn’t wanted. She moves slowly through the rooms, slower than usual, replacing empty bottles of hotel shampoo, folding the ends of toilet paper rolls into points, smoothing down the towels and then smoothing them down again. She wonders if he’d called room service, like she’d suggested. She hopes that he is viciously hungover. She hopes that he’s forgotten her.

At the end of the day the baking tin is empty. Brienne licks a finger and dabs up the crumbs before putting the tin in the bag. It’s dark and cold outside and Brienne holds her hands clasped under her throat, pressing her scarf closer to her neck. She feels uncomfortable still, like the wind is blowing through her, like it’s getting under her skin. Jaime Lannister hadn’t found her, clothed or unclothed, and she feels like the day is ending half finished. 

At home, she doesn’t bake. Her hands are heavy and she hasn’t washed the dishes from the biscuits. She eats microwave pasta and she reads his book and she falls asleep and dreams of knights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no jaime this time, i'm sorry. but feelings! and sansa! 
> 
> thank you for reading, lmk what you think ♡


	4. Chapter 4

Brienne forgets about Jaime Lannister. She reads his book, and then the second in the series, and the third. She cleans his room when it's empty. But he is just rumpled sheets and empty bottles from the mini-bar. He is just the golden knight and the woman with golden hair and the girl in dented armour who is a thousand pages dead. She knows he’s still staying in the hotel. Sansa gives everyone updates on every high profile guest, but Brienne doesn’t care. He is just one name on a long list of people who have insulted her, so she forgets him. 

In his room, she changes his sheets and his flowers. She takes the day old bouquets home and hangs them from the light fixtures so they’ll dry prettily. Roses and geranium and delphinium. It’s against the rules, technically. She could get fired,  _ technically _ . But she knows Sansa has taken cloth napkins before, and Margaery in the kitchens has taken chocolate, and the flowers would be wasted otherwise. She likes pretty things, and hanging flowers is far easier than curling her hair. 

When she is called to Petyr Baelish’s office one evening, she thinks that she must have been caught. Someone noticed her carrying a bunch of poppies under her arm, or baby’s breath sticking out of the top of her backpack. She can’t think who, but her hands are clenched so tight her knuckles are white, when she raps on the door to his office.

“How do you know Jaime Lannister?” he asks, by way of a greeting.

“I… I don’t,” Brienne says, frowning. “I clean his room.”  _ I steal his flowers _ .

“He’s asked for you.”

Brienne digs a thumbnail into one of her cuticles to stop her from spitting out something ridiculous. Outrage and anger. Baelish wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Why?” she asks instead.

“If I knew that you wouldn’t be here,” says Baelish, tilting his head.

His eyes are always so sharp, Brienne thinks. They crawl over her skin and she looks at her feet for a moment, just to dull the blade, and when she looks up and meets his gaze she feels like she’s won something. Like she’s brave.

“Do I need to do anything?”

“Take him his room service.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“He ordered room service. He asked for you.”

“He doesn’t  _ know _ me.”

“He asked for the seven foot blonde woman,” Baelish says flatly. “Can you think of anyone else who matches that description?”

“I’m not seven feet tall,” Brienne whispers, but she knows it must be her. “Can I say no?”

“Yes,” says Baelish in a tone that clearly means the opposite.

So Brienne leaves. She goes to the kitchens to pick up the meal. It’s under a silver dome, bright enough to use as a mirror, and there’s a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice next to it. She wheels it all to the service elevator, hating Jaime Lannister the whole time, and she has not finished the third book yet, but she is sure that she will hate that too. She considers her job, not glamorous, but steady, and necessary, and she considers how hard it would be to get another. Catelyn Stark would hire her, she knows this, but the idea of working for a friend doesn’t sit right either. It’s just one room service delivery, to one man she’s barely spoken to, and if she’s quick about it, it’s just five minutes of her time.

When he opens the door in a robe and fuzzy slippers, Brienne keeps her face very carefully blank. She has seen him out of doors, in real clothing. He does own shoes. This is not unusual.

“Room service,” she says.

“You came!” he cries, apparently delighted. “Come in!”

She follows him into the room and she wheels the cart into position and she busies herself with cutlery and napkins and mirror-bright silver, moving everything over to the glass dining table. He watches her, she can  _ feel _ him watching her, and she drops a knife and the clatter it makes falling onto the tray is the loudest thing in the world.

“Please call if there is anything else you require,” she says, trying to sound as sweet as Sansa does when she’s greeting guests.

“Drink with me,” he says, grabbing the champagne.

“I’m working.”

He pops the champagne cork and the bubbles fall over his hand. The cork hits the ceiling and Brienne ducks as it flies passed her head and Jaime Lannister laughs. She puts her hands behind her back. 

“I’m celebrating,” he says, filling a glass.

“I’m working,” she repeats, moving to tug the now empty trolley toward the door. 

“Wait, just-.” He frowns and he runs a hand through his hair and he gulps down the champagne so quickly he coughs, and burps, and his cheeks go very faintly pink. Brienne pauses.

“I really can’t drink,” she says, carefully. “What are you celebrating?” 

“Nothing really,” he says, and he laughs, a strange sound, bitter at the edges. “A new book deal.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” He laughs again, and pours himself another glass.

“Why did you ask for me?” She’s asked the question before she can stop herself, and the words come out rushed and crooked, and she fights the urge to cover her mouth with a hand. He is smiling. A golden knight.

“Because you’ve always been sweet to me.”

“All these years,” Brienne mutters, rolling her eyes.

His smile grows wider and suddenly Brienne knows why he’s asked for her, why his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, why his hands shake at the stem of the champagne flute. He has no one else. She licks her lips and tries not to let this realisation change anything. He is still some rich asshole in a penthouse. He is still some rich asshole with a drinking problem and a talent for killing off his best characters.

“If you can’t drink, at least eat with me.”

He plucks the silver dome from the plate to reveal waffles, and a little boat of syrup, and one of clotted cream, and a bowl of strawberries. Brienne wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. She bites her lip and lets herself smile instead.

“Waffles and champagne,” she says. “Do you always celebrate like this?”

“Every time,” says Jaime Lannister, biting into a strawberry, grinning around the red.

She should leave. She should return the room service trolley and get back to cleaning, she has a whole floor to do before she finishes for the day. She doesn’t want to leave. She wants to ask him about his new book, whether it will have anything to do with the others. She wants to tell him that he should revisit the girl in the dented armour, because she could carry a whole world on her shoulders. She wants to make him apologise to her again. Instead, she eats a strawberry and then she presses her fingertips to the corners of her mouth. 

“I’m Brienne,” she tells him, dropping the strawberry’s green cap onto the plate. 

“Jaime,” he says, and he holds out his hand and she shakes it, and his skin is warm, and sticky with champagne, and golden. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! ♡


	5. Chapter 5

When Brienne next finds Jaime, sitting on the floor outside his room, head in his hands, she sighs. She sighs and he looks up and there’s something broken in his expression, something chewed up raw, and she sighs again. At least he’s wearing actual clothing.

“Come with me,” she says and she holds out a hand. Jaime stares at it for so long she almost gives up and leaves, but then he’s reaching up and taking it and she’s pulling him onto his feet and his hand is dry and warm and it fits against hers perfectly. She lets go quickly, curls her fingers into her palm, and she doesn’t watch the way he stretches out his hand, like he’s testing the way it feels now. After touching her. He has no one else, she reminds herself, and that’s not her problem. Still, she’s not good at ignoring kicked puppies either.

“You have a strong grip,” he says, faintly. Brienne rolls her eyes and takes off down the hall and he has to trot to keep up with her, but he matches her stride quickly. He doesn’t smell like alcohol. He smiles like the artificial caramel of the hotel’s bubble bath. He a sober mess today then, but still a mess.

She takes him to Sansa first, at the restaurant, because she knows Sansa always has food squirreled away and because she wants someone to know where she’s going. Sansa’s eyebrows rise almost to her hairline, but she doesn’t comment on Brienne’s choice of company.

“Do you have anything I can steal?” Brienne asks. “I’ll bring you muffins tomorrow.”

“Lemon and poppy seed,” says Sansa, and Brienne nods, and she disappears for a moment, out to the kitchens, and comes back with a white bakery bag and a bottle of water. “He looks dehydrated,” she says, handing both to Brienne.

Jaime doesn’t say anything as she heads back toward the service elevator. He just walks, half a step behind her, hands in his pockets. She holds her breath as the elevator climbs up passed his penthouse suite. She holds her breath and closes her eyes for a moment, like maybe if she doesn’t see it happening, it doesn’t count as breaking the rules. When she opens them, she sees Jaime balancing the bottle of water on the flat of his palm, and the curved glow of the elevator number button, reaching its highest point. The doors open. Jaime follows her.

It’s stairs after that. Two flights and then a security door and then open sky. A couple of maintenance buildings and the wide flat space Baelish had wanted to use as a helipad, before he discovered all the permits you needed for something like that. The air is so bright that Brienne is blinking back sunspots as she walks and she can hear Jaime stumbling behind her. She walks a little faster, so he doesn’t see her smiling.

Sansa had taken Brienne to the roof the first time, when she’d had a series of bad days and was wound so tight with anger she couldn’t cut a smooth line in a bed sheet. Sansa had grabbed a chocolate mousse in a martini glass, and hustled her to the service elevator, and they’d sat on the roof together until Brienne’s hands were steady and her shoulders were loose. It’s a place that does something similar to what baking using her mother’s recipes does. Something that pulls worry from her brow and tension from her fists. A place where she can get above the city and breath.

She takes Jaime Lannister there and they sit on the edge of the world, surrounded by grey and glass. Brienne tears open the paper bag, and there are cinnamon rolls inside, sticky and warm, and Jaime hums and twists the cap of the bottle of water open. It’s a bright day and the water in the bottle makes shivering patterns on the concrete. Brienne pushes the cinnamon rolls across to Jaime just as he offers the bottle to her and it shouldn't make her blush, just giving something like water or bread to another person, but it does. Jaime grins. Brienne rolls her eyes, takes a sip of the water and swallows too fast and struggles not to choke.

“You come here often?” Jaime asks, and she looks up just as he winks so she looks away again, presses the tips of her fingers to the corners of her mouth, in case there’s water gathered there.

“You didn’t look so good,” she says. She picks up one of the buns, takes a bite, licks her fingers. “I didn’t want you trashing anything. We’re the ones who have to deal with that, you know.”

“I wouldn’t,” says Jaime.

They eat their cinnamon rolls and pass the water between them. He gets cinnamon stuck to his cheek and his limbs are loose and the collar of his t-shirt is stretched a little at one side. Brienne doesn’t think she’s ever seen him comfortable. Not in his underwear, not in a bubble bath, not in a fluffy robe with champagne and strawberries. But here, on a roof eating cinnamon rolls and clear water, he might be close.

“You killed my favourite character,” she says, to cut through all of that. She won’t allow herself to be comfortable. “She didn’t deserve it.”

“You read my books?” He looks delighted. Brienne scowls.

“I’m not finished,” she mutters. “I don’t like them.”

“Who’s your favourite?” He squints at her. “It’s Gwen, right? It has to be.”   
  
“No,” she lies. “I don’t know why you had to kill her.”   
  
“Because he didn’t deserve her,” says Jaime, and Brienne knows he’s talking about the golden knight. He isn’t dead yet, but he is alone. His golden woman is burning down castles somewhere and he’s alone with his thoughts and without a hand and Brienne had been triumphant to know that their relationship was as broken as she thought it was, but it’s just sad now.

“You killed her for his benefit then.” She wrinkles her nose, takes another sip from the bottle, passes it to Jaime. “Typical.”

Jaime laughs, loud and clear, contained only by the buildings surrounding them, the clouds and the concrete. “I’ll bring her back,” he says. “Just for you.”

“Shut up,” she mutters.

“He’s me, you know,” says Jaime. He’s talking about the golden knight again and there’s a bitter twist to his mouth and he’s uncomfortable again and Brienne knows, she _knows_ , it’s obvious if you’ve read just one of his books, but he doesn’t say it the way he should. He says it like it’s some awful joke at his own expense, like he wishes he could take it back, like there’s no such thing as gold, and Brienne doesn’t know what to say to that. She passes him the water bottle instead and his fingers brush hers when he takes it and his expression softens, becomes a little easier to look at.

“Is Gwen a real person too?” she asks.

“No.” Jaime laughs. “No, I don’t deserve her either.”

“Probably not,” she agrees, quietly, and he laughs again and the water bottle catches sunlight.

They stay sitting on the roof for an hour or more. Longer than Brienne’s lunch break usually allows, but she’s pretty sure she won’t be missed. Baelish is away at some conference and she can get her rooms done in the time that she has left. Yesterday’s flowers were beautiful, she’s excited to take some home, to fill her small apartment with the smell of lilies. Today’s flowers are tulips. Jaime Lannister looks like a cat, sprawled out across the concrete, and there’s none of the rawness in his eyes there was before, and they talk about his books and he asks her about his life, takes whatever she gives him, and it’s easy to talk to him in sunlight. Easier than it should be. He probably goes to parties on rooftops all the time.

It can’t last though, and eventually Brienne gets up and brushes down her uniform. He looks up at her expectantly and she rolls her eyes for the millionth time that day and holds out a hand for him again. He takes it, lets her pull him to his feet, and keeps it.

“Thank you,” he says, holding her hand between both of his, so sincere her breath catches. He’s warm from the sun and his palms are rough from being pressed against concrete. She snatches her hand back a second too late and the smile he gives her is bitter and impossibly tired. “I’m checking out tomorrow,” he says.

“Good,” she blurts, knee jerk and too loud. Her cheeks burn. She busies herself collecting the empty water bottle, the paper bag stained with cinnamon and icing. “You’re disruptive.”

“I think you like being disrupted,” says Jaime. He’s staring out to the jagged horizon, the buildings and towers of the city, shading his eyes from the sun. “Who will share their strawberries with you now?”

Brienne doesn’t say anything, she just shrugs and starts back towards the elevators, balling up the paper bag in one hand. Jaime follows her, catches up, bumps her shoulder with his. He’s smiling brightly again, not tired, and there’s a skip in his step. She wonders if the woman with golden hair is a real person too.

In the elevator, she hits the button for his floor and he shoves his hands in his pockets, leans against the wall, closes his eyes.

“Give me your number,” he says, when the lift starts moving.

“No way,” snorts Brienne, and then, “why?”

“We’re friends,” says Jaime. He’s smiling but he hasn’t opened his eyes. “I’m leaving the city for awhile.”

“We’re not friends,” mutters Brienne. “I’m paid to talk to you.”

“Ouch.” Jaime laughs. “If it makes you feel better, you can pretend that we’re not friends and you’re just advising me on my book, to keep characterisation consistent.”

“You’ll have to pay me for that too.”

“If you want.”

“Fuck you.”

Jaime hums, shrugs, falls silent. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. The elevator doors open, but neither of them move. Brienne fidgets, puts the crumpled up bakery bag in her pocket, swings the empty bottle between two fingers. She _is_ paid to talk to him, but she also kind of likes it. Likes him. Not much, but a little bit. She would like to talk to him without money between them, though she's not sure that's possible with him having so much of it. She sighs, holds her hand out to him and kicks his shin so he opens his eyes. He laughs, takes his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to her. She stands against the elevator doors, so they won’t close, and adds her number to his phone, and hands it back. He smiles at her like sunrise, like the warm edges of a morning in spring, and she hugs herself and kicks her heel back against the door.

“I’ll kick your ass if you… if you fuck with me,” she says, quietly.

“Of course.”

“Make sure you’re out before check out.”

“Of course.”

“Stop it.”

He grins, holds his tongue, and Brienne laughs and turns away, steps back from the doors. He touches the back of her hand before he leaves, just a small thing, just the brush of his fingers against her skin, and she bites her lip so she won’t say anything stupid. He’s waving as the door closes, a twist of his wrist, and she nods back at him, stilted and strange, and then he’s gone and the elevator’s moving again. Good, she thinks. She taps at the plastic bottle until the water drops collecting at the top fall. She holds her hands behind her back. It’s good that he’s leaving. It’s good that he might talk to her again too, but it’s better that he’s leaving. Her phone buzzes in her hand and of course it’s him, a winking emoji and a tiny pair of crossed swords. She laughs, puts her phone back in her pocket, presses the backs of her hands to her warm cheeks. Maybe she’ll never hear from him again, but she doesn’t think so. Maybe she’ll read his books and fall into that world and forget that he’s a real person altogether, but she doesn’t think so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! this is where i got up to on tumblr, all those years ago. it's strange, chapter five is so much longer than all the previous chapters. i think the way i write changed a lot between four and five. i hope it's not that obvious. from now on everything will be new! so you'll have to wait longer than a day for chapters, unfortunately. 
> 
> thank you for reading, and lmk what you think :)


	6. Chapter 6

Brienne walks to work when she has early shifts, leaving her apartment when it's still dark and arriving at the hotel as the sun comes up, in muddled stripes of pink and orange, over stars. She likes the way everything feels indistinct, dream-like, even the concrete and glass and steel of the city. She puts headphones on but doesn't listen to anything, just blurs the sounds of the world waking up into a hollow echo. It's comforting, she thinks, being able to see the world like you're separate from it.

Jaime will be checking out that morning. She arrives at the hotel and swipes herself into the staff area around the back of the building and thinks that he'll be checking out in a few hours and then leaving the city entirely. Well. It doesn't matter. She considers taking her phone with her while she works, but decides against it, leaves it in her locker with her bag and gym gear and the lemon and poppyseed muffins she'd made for Sansa.

That morning she's readying the standard suites for the day's early check-ins. She fills trays with boxes of teabags and sachets of instant coffee and she replaces toiletries and fluffs pillows. They get one bouquet of flowers per suite, for the main room. Burnt orange snapdragons and butter yellow freesias. Pretty and rustic. They remind her of her father's garden, back home. Last time she'd been there it had been messy with sugar peas and jasmine and he'd been down at the beach, in her mother's old straw hat, dragging up seaweed to put in big blue tubs, to make fertilizer. She is careful with the bouquet, setting the tall glass vase on the little desk under the biggest window, and turning it twice, so that the prettiest side is facing the entry to the room.

It's Sansa's day off, Brienne had forgotten, so the muffins stay in her locker. She takes her half hour break with Podrick, a perpetually terrified teenage dishwasher who, for unknown reasons, seems to look up to her. He has a rhythm game on his phone that he's absurdly good at, and they swap it between them, and he laughs at her, because she's terrible at it and because she doesn't know any of the songs.

They're interrupted by the beep and pull of someone swiping themselves into the room. Brienne ignores it, but Podrick misses a whole sequence of drum beats, which Brienne can only be momentarily triumphant about, because Petyr Baelish is then standing over them.

"Mr Baelish," says Brienne, slightly too late.

"I need to speak with you, Miss Tarth," he says, his expression so mild it can only be bad. Next to her, Podrick is frozen. There is still music coming from his phone, tinny and bright.

"Sure," says Brienne, too late again. "Of course."

She gets up, turns away from Baelish so she can pull a face at Podrick, who just stares at her in horror. Fair enough. She tugs her shirt straight and follows Baelish from the room.

He doesn't speak to her until they're in his office, and even then he takes his time. He walks around his desk, unbuttons his jacket so it doesn't pull at the waist, and sits down. He places his palms on the table.

"You can sit," he says, looking up and smiling tightly, like he's surprised she hasn't already. She sits. She folds her hands in her lap.

"What can I do-"

"Jaime Lannister has given you his room," he interrupts.

Brienne's whole body tenses. She swallows, tugs her shirt straight again. "What?" she asks. Her voice is brittle. She tucks her hair behind her ears, like putting something in place will make what she's being told suddenly make sense.

"He has paid for his room for the week, added a room service tab, and instructed us to give the key to you."

" _Why_?"

"You'll have to ask him that."

"I don't want it." It _doesn't_ make any sense, she thinks. All she’d done was talk to him. All she’d done was feed him and talk to him. He has no one else. She pushes her shoulders back, sits up a little straighter. Well neither do I, she thinks.

Baelish is silent for a long moment. He shuffles some papers, takes a blue and gold hotel pen from his jacket's top pocket, clicks it twice and then slides it back into place.

"The key is at reception," he says. "You can pick it up when your shift ends. Whatever you do after that is up to you."

He stands up, which Brienne takes as the end of the discussion, so she leaves. She always feels dirty, leaving Baelish's office. Like she's done something wrong. So what if Jaime left a suite to her? Why shouldn't he? If he'd left it to Sansa or Margaery, with her rosebud mouth, no one would be questioning it. Actually, they would probably be fired on the spot, because Baelish would assume they'd fucked a guest. Irritated, she pulls her phone from her pocket.

"Hello?" Sansa answers, voice like a bell.

"Jaime Lannister's given me his suite to use for the week," she answers. "The penthouse."

"Oh my God," Sansa hisses. "Is he still _there_?"

"No." Brienne stalks down the hall, back towards the break room. "No, he's checked out."

"Amazing." She laughs.

"Is it?"

"Why wouldn't it be? Brienne, why do you sound like you're chewing on a brick?"

"I don't know, I don't think I'm going to use it."

"What time do you finish?"

"One."

"I'll meet you a reception."

"Sansa, I'm... you don't have to, it's-"

"See you then." She hangs up before Brienne can reply.

Sometimes, in high school, boys would invite her places and then never show up. Even at the time she'd found it absurd, like something from a movie, Carrie at the prom with pig's blood in her hair. Something that didn't happen in real life because kids couldn't possibly be that cruel. But she always went and they never showed up. She would pretend it didn't bother her and go home and stare at herself in the mirror, pinch at her nose, her mouth, tug at her hair, and then go back to school and beat those same boys in boxing club or the swim team or on the baseball field. Little victories, she'd thought. A way of getting back at them that didn't destroy herself, she'd thought.

In the break room, it crosses her mind that this might be something similar. Some big joke played on her by a man so pretty it’s annoying. But then she thinks of his books, the golden knight, hated and admired in equal measures, and she thinks of the way he'd looked when he'd said _he's me_ , and she thinks that it’s more likely just a rich man’s warped idea of gratitude. Even though she hadn’t actually _done_ anything. She puts her phone in her locker again, to stop herself from messaging him something ridiculous, and she heads out to finish her shift.

It’s an easy sort of thing to lose herself in, prettying up rooms that don’t really need it, but she still finds herself drawn to the mirrors in the bathroom, like she had been as a kid. It’s not all bad, she thinks, flicking water at the glass. She's comfortable in her skin in a way she'd never been in high school. She can recognise herself without cringing. Little victories, she thinks, and she sprays the mirror with glass cleaner, and smears herself away.

Sansa is at reception, as she'd said she'd be, pretty in a cream dress, little pearl buttons down the front, and grey wool tights. She's talking with Loras, who works front of house, in black and gold. Brienne doesn't see him very often. She should have changed out of her uniform, but she only has her gym gear and a jacket. She buries her hands in her pockets and walks across to the desk.

"Brienne," says Sansa, noticing her immediately. "Loras won't give me your key, he's being very professional."

"I don't want the Lannisters blacklisting our hotel because I couldn't follow instructions," Loras says, rolling his eyes. "Hi Brienne."

"Hello," she says, quietly. "How's Renly?"

"He's well. He misses you."

Brienne nods, chews at the dry skin on her lower lip, pulling at it with her teeth until it splits and stings. Sansa bumps her shoulder against Brienne's, and then tucks her hand around her wrist.

"Come on then," she says. "Let's get champagne."

They take the keycard and head to the suite. Eleven floors. Brienne's fingers keep twitching, because she doesn't have her cleaning cart, nothing to hold on to. Sansa is talking about the autumn weather, a street sweeper that keeps circling her block, over and over, though there can't possibly be that many leaves yet.

It feels different, walking into a room as a guest. Sansa oohs and aahs over everything. The flowers are all peach coloured, peonys and garden roses and white lilies of the valley. Brienne prefers the flowers in the standard suites.

"They give us ginger kisses, the florist, every morning," says Sansa, absently. "More than we could ever eat."

"I have muffins," says Brienne, remembering. "For... helping yesterday."

"What were you doing, exactly?" Sansa asks. "With Jaime Lannister."

"Nothing." Brienne sits down on the couch in the main room, pulls a cushion into her lap. "He was unhappy, I think."

Sansa hums thoughtfully, and flops down beside Brienne. She leans back over the arm to pick up the phone from the side table.

"Champagne?" she asks. "Strawberries?"

"Alright," says Brienne. She wants to ask for waffles too, but she doesn't. She plumps the cushion between her hands. Outside, on the deck, the high sun is shining over the water of the pool. That's something, Brienne thinks. She has her swimsuit with her, had thought about going to the public pools for the afternoon, before school let out and it was overrun with kids.

On the phone, Sansa teases whoever's working. Brienne gets up and walks around the suite. She knows it so well, the way every piece of furniture sits against the carpet, the way the air and light feel, filtered through the blinds. She wonders how many people have taken the same steps she has, between rooms. Hundreds probably. Thousands. Jaime Lannister in his fluffy slippers.

She returns to the living room and Sansa is frowning at the mini-bar.

"Gin or vodka, Brienne?"

"Didn't you order champagne? I don't want to get drunk," says Brienne, laughing.

"We'll have the muffins then," says Sansa, airily. So they have muffins and gin and tonics with ice and lime and then room service comes and they have champagne and strawberries.

Brienne stretches out on the couch, feet propped up on the arm. Sansa sits on the floor, cross-legged, in a patch of sun. She's talking about the Lannisters.

"Do you even know about his family? They're..." She wrinkles her nose. "They're bad people. His wife, she's a witch."

"His wife," echoes Brienne. Her cheeks prickle. She touches the cool rim of her glass to her lower lip.

"Ex-wife." She waves her hand dismissively. "My parents know them.”

Brienne bites her tongue, doesn't ask about his wife. Ex-wife. She gets up, walks around the room again, touches the petals of a garden rose. She feels a little tipsy, but not much. _They're bad people._  Well. Maybe. Jaime, at least, has been a little less than a perfect gentleman.

"I'm going to have a swim," she says, quietly.

She gets changed in the bathroom. Her swimsuit is a blue one piece, plain, white stripes down the sides and a racer back. She takes her keys and phone out of her uniform pocket when she's changed. She has five new messages, an hour old. 

 **From: Jaime Lannister  
** **Sent: 13:11  
** shall i surprise u in the bath?  
**  
** **Sent: 13:11**  
for the sake of tradition  
  
**Sent: 13:14**  
ignore that

 **Sent: 13:14  
**ignore me

 **Sent: 13:19**  
just make sure u steal the robe

She stares at the screen for so long the words stop making any sense and then she turns her phone off because they  _don't_ make sense, and because she doesn't want to send him back something equally stupid. She bundles it up with her uniform and leaves it in the bathroom. 

Outside, on the deck, the sun is getting lower and the sky is getting greyer. It's cool, but Brienne dips her foot in the long, rectangular pool, and the water is warm. She takes the stone steps into the pool, watches the way the water rises up her legs as she gets deeper, the cushioned edge of the surface against her skin, like it isn't even wet, like it won't break over her knees, her thighs, her hips. It's a relief, somehow. A comfort. Like walking to work in the early morning. Something that seems outside of the rest of the world. She dives under and starts to swim. 

She is not sure how long she's out there, swimming laps, but the sky has darkened considerably when she climbs out. It's getting to cold, even under water. She wraps the towel she'd brought out with her around her shoulders, and trots, shivering, back inside. In the bathroom she considers the bath. It's big and deep and luxurious. But then she remembers the little bottles along the edge and Jaime's eyes, and she takes a shower instead. To wash the chlorine from her hair. Afterwards, she changes back into her uniform. It's dark red, trimmed in black. Tailored trousers and a smock with big pockets at the front. The hotel's logo embroidered over her heart. She can't stay here, she realises. It's too strange. She walks back out to where Sansa's watching something mindless, stretched out on the couch. 

"I need to go home," she says, quietly. 

Sansa looks up, and something must be showing on Brienne's face, because she just nods. 

"I can drive you," she says, and the leave.

In the car, Sansa makes her pick the music and they sing along to cheesy pop from the 90s, Shania Twain and Boyzone and Billie Piper, and they both know all the words even though Sansa isn't quite old enough to have experienced them like Brienne had, in her bedroom in socks and pyjamas, yelling into her hairbrush. When she drops Brienne off, she's grave, and sweet, and she touches the back of Brienne's hand softly.

"Let me know if you need me to kill him," she says, and Brienne laughs.

Inside, at home, in socks and pyjamas, she cooks dinner and then reads in bed. She rests her phone on the pillow beside her and pretends she isn't thinking of the messages she hasn't replied to yet. The golden knight is trying to be better, but it might be that it's too late. Brienne taps at the screen of her phone and then she sighs and puts her book down and calls him. 

"How's the room?" he answers, and Brienne smiles, despite herself.

"I'm at home," she says. "Do you usually give strangers penthouse suites?"

"You're not a stranger," he says, sounding slightly crestfallen. "I just wanted to say thank you, for... you helped, anyway."

"I... used the pool," she concedes. "I got room service."

Jaime laughs at that and Brienne is relieved. She hugs her knees to her chest. She traces the pale blue flannel pattern on her pyjamas with a finger. She has two days off now, a midweek weekend, and the urge to tell him this is almost overwhelming. 

"Have you left the city?" she asks instead.

"I'm in the  _woods_ ," he says, sounding disgusted. "My publisher says it will help me write, but I think she's really just a sadist." 

"I grew up in the woods," says Brienne. "On an island." 

"Of course you did," mutters Jaime. "I bet you're great at chopping firewood." 

"I am, actually," says Brienne, laughing.

"Did you steal the robe?" 

"No. I'd probably get fired if I did."

"I'll give you mine." 

"No thanks." 

"I'll stitch your name on the front." 

"Not interested." 

"I'll embroider until my fingers bleed." 

"Please don't." 

"You're no fun." 

"You're not actually the first person to say that to me."

"I'm shocked." 

Brienne laughs again and leans back against headboard and shuts her eyes. They talk for a long time, about everything and nothing, and Brienne's voice is half a whisper by the time they say their goodbyes. She doesn't understand it. It doesn't make sense. He's annoying, but... well. He also seems so eager just to talk to her. And she  _likes_ talking to him. And she's been so wary for so long, of the sort of attention people pay her, even when it's earnest, and she's _tired_. She should call Renly. She should call Renly and she should call her father and she should hang out with Sansa when she asks, outside of work. Instead, she talks to Jaime until the early hours of the morning, curled up on her bed, and when she finally falls asleep she dreams of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright! so! i hear that show finished. it feels so weird, right? i haven't watched it properly in so long but it still feels weird it's over. too bad they ran it into the ground. oh well! this is the first new chapter of this thing i've written in what. a year or more? since the last chapter was posted on tumblr. that's weird too. i hope the writing hasn't changed too much. thank you for reading! lmk what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, please lmk what you think ♡


End file.
